The Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius is about to embark on the
construction of a new-age masterpiece. Designed by award-winning
British Iraqi
deconstructivist architect Zaha Hadid, the new Guggenheim
Hermitage Museum will be a museum and arts center that houses the
St. Petersburg-based State Hermitage Museum and selected Guggenheim
collections.

The pre-build research for the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum is
slated for completion by 2008 and the building set to open in 2011.
Check out the phenomenal photos of the design pictured below the
fold.

Other remarkable projects by Zaha Hadid currently underway
include the CMA
CGM Tower in Marseille, France, the Bridge
Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain, the Kartal Urban Transformation in
Istanbul, Turkey, and the Glasgow
Transport Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.

Seeing such forward-thinking architecture cropping up in the
small post-Soviet Baltic country of Lithuania, with a total
population of only about 3.7 million, demonstrates just how high
the bar has been set for futuristic architecture around the world.
I wonder when such design will make its way into more expensive
markets like NYC? (cont.)